Alair Enright
Summary Angsty teen, social justice warrior, martyr complex, dorky charm, suspicious of authority, demisexual, hates liars, likes to go very fast, dog person, deeply traumatised, immovably ethical but rarely kind, zero patience, EDM enthusiast (but drives to classic rock), forced out of the closet. Family Her father (Edwin Enright) is a surgeon in the hospital in Vancouver and an abusive asshole. Her mother (Tanis Marten-Enright) is a dancer/artist/former homemaker who lives on a reservation outside of Vancouver. The normal-appearing marriage of Alair's parents unravelled completely over time. While Tanis was accepting of Alair's feminine qualities and her persistent desire to be a girl, Edwin was disapproving. As has become obvious over the years, he is obsessed with projecting an image of perfection and success and felt it compromised by the "loss" of his son and the "betrayal" of his wife in the matter; he blamed Tanis' culture for her easy acceptance of Alair and sought to alienate her/Alair from their Native American family. Edwin became increasingly ornery, drunk, and began stepping out of the marriage. When Tanis discovered the cheating, she and Edwin had a screaming match that led to the first instance of physical abuse in Alair's home. Tanis attempted on several occasions to leave, but was convinced through tactics of fear and the threat of losing custody of Alair to stay; the only place she had to flee to was the reservation, and she knew that prevailing racism in the state and her lack of substantive income would allow Edwin disproportionate power over her. Tanis finally left with 11-year-old Alair when Edwin's abuse caused her to miscarry her (very unplanned) second child. However, when the divorce was finalized, she was unable to prove his role in Alair's sister's death and Edwin won full custody. When Tanis desperately tried to flee across the border with Alair to reunite with family in Canada, she was soon extradited and charged by Edwin with custodial interference. She served two years for a class C felony, a time that was the worst in Alair's life; her father's abuse compounded, he began to bring home various women, and she had no one to protect or defend her or to talk to regularly. Alair has a dog, Connor, who one of her father's brief "girlfriends" brought to their home and left behind. When she moved to go to school, her mother came from the reservation to pick him up, as Alair does not trust her father not to abuse the animal while she is away. Since Alair's first holiday at the school (she chose not to return home to her father, who signed the release for her to stay), he invited one of the women from a former affair to move into his home, along with her 11-year-old son -- Alair's half-brother, Simon Mathers. Alair's father closely monitors reports from Alair's school and sends e-mails commenting vaguely on them. Alair keeps her grades up out of fear that he will visit. Background Alair was born and is still forced to present as biologically male, as her father has always beaten her frequently for any feminine or "gay" tendencies and will not pay a psychologist to diagnose her body dysphoria, nor (obviously) will he pay for the hormone treatments she needs. Alair has faced significant abuse from her father and to a lesser extent from her peers at previous schools. As a result, she was secretly delighted that her father wanted to send her to boarding school, though he drunkenly told her about the decision, citing that "I'm sick of your whining face." In an act of bravery, she changed her listed gender on the enrolment forms before they were sent off. However, when her father found her acceptance letters using female pronouns, Alair received the most severe beating of her life, after which her father called the school to correct their "mistake." Her mother has never questioned Alair's gender identity. Alair was able to speak to her on the phone while she was in jail, but was only able to visit twice, through the kindness of an uncle who came to pick her up to bring her for Christmas. When her mother picked up Connor to bring him to the reservation -- shortly after she'd been released from jail and not long before Alair's freshman year -- one of Alair's cousins got her involved in the dealing of marijuana to kids at the high school. In time, Alair and her cousin began to turn a significant enough profit that Alair purchased a beater of a car for her 15th birthday and began to be able to drive to visit her mother on the reservation. In addition to this, her mother acquired a credit card and allows Alair to use it to purchase hormones online to be shipped to the res. Since the legalization of marijuana in Washington, Alair helps on the res with a mostly-legal growing operation for a bit of money and has ceased selling, although she does put kids at the high school in touch with dealers. Personality Alair is usually quiet and nervous. She doesn't like the sound of her voice and only speaks in class when called on. She sometimes gets agitated enough about people being picked on or about racism not directed at her that she sticks up for others, but her instinct after she speaks up is to flee. She is, as a result, a pretty good runner. She is extremely thin and eats very little, as any weight gained makes her feel more masculine. She has more than a few scars she doesn't like anyone to see. She is a very compassionate but extremely repressed person. She's smart but not brilliant, so she puts enough effort into her schoolwork to ensure her grades are good and do not get her into any trouble. Because she has to deal with being identified as male at school, she wears an overly large version of the uniform with shirts under so as to hide her developing breasts and showers and changes in a bathroom stall extremely early in the morning. Her avoidance of the other boys in her dorm and her attachment to her mother do not leave her well-liked among the male students, except amongst stoners and a few begrudging members of the soccer team and track. Alair dislikes sports and most of the boys involved in them, but she's fast and doing well at traditionally masculine pursuits keeps her father from asking questions about her life. Alair enjoys music and dance and likes to sit alone with her computer and create mash-ups and electronic music. She participates in the breakdance club by bringing music and occasionally becoming unselfconscious enough to dance, but she has never registered officially in the club lest it appear suspicious to her father on one of her term reports. She was once asked out by a particularly bold Knight girl in the club (Ashley Mason), but simply answered, "I'm sorry, I can't." Ashley assumes this is because Alair is gay and won't say so explicitly, so she did not take it personally and is somewhat of a friend to Alair, despite her complete misunderstanding. Alair also gets along with some of the more shy or more progressive girls in her house, since at a couple of points she's stood up for other girls when the boys of the school have harassed them. However, she has mostly acquaintanceships or one-sided friendships, since she has a few people who single her out to listen but no one she can trust enough to talk to. Alair is happiest when visiting her mother's family on the res. She likes to take Connor running and to sit and watch her mother work. Errata Alair's 2001 Geo Metro is extremely uncool and rustier than pictured, but it still runs. As the Yellow Ranger (Season 1) Personality Alair is suspicious of Miss White, who threatened her when they met. She is a little freaked out by being outed by the morph and doesn't talk to her fellow rangers at first, until she confesses to Emi that she's afraid to like anyone because she's a girl and they might not like her that way, and later explicitly talks to Trenton about her pronouns. She ends up coming out to her best friend Ashley and dating her. She tries to be good at being a friend, attempting to reach out to Daniel and shield him from Shahla. She dislikes Shahla for being mean initially and then later loathes her for stomping Ashley, but helps her out anyway. Fighting the huge bug creature, she expends a huge amount of energy to strike down the monster when Holly is in a precarious situation. However, she is awkward and doesn't trust easily. She eats more because she feels less self-conscious (since she's seen her body the way it could be) but still picks at her food a lot. Thoughts on Other Rangers Emi: Alair feels conflicted about Emi. She's been accepting and kind towards Alair, but pulled a cruel trick on Daniel and betrayed team consensus by calling the police. However, she sympathizes with Emi's reaction to the dead man and has grown to feel protective of her, especially because of Miss White's snide remarks. She doesn't understand all of Emi's actions, but feels extreme guilt for failing to save her and wants to be her friend. Holly: Alair feels misunderstood by Holly and finds it frustrating, but she's not comfortable trying to explain herself because she's not sure Holly likes her or that she's easy to understand. She's not sure how to reach out or if she should. She has found some common ground with Holly in terms of Miss White's strange actions at times, but doesn't feel comfortable pushing Holly further to investigate Miss White since they seem close. While stoned, she tries to pick a fight with a stupid jock for saying something shitty about Holly. She isn't sure where they stand. Trenton: Alair feels affection towards Trenton, but thinks he's reckless and erratic. The moments when he asked for her pronouns or told her she was looking good resonate often in her mind--that kind of respect and attention from someone popular made her happy. (And she does think he's good-looking.) She also knows that he tends to create his own problems and that he isn't always tactful towards people who aren't his friends, which makes her eyes roll (although it has definitely rubbed off on her). She thinks they are casual friends and is happy with that--the tangled web of his personal life is something she's glad to stay out of. Daniel: Alair feels constantly frustrated in her attempts to bond with Daniel, but feels protective towards him. She tries to find things they have in common or to ask his opinions, but the things he enjoys seem strange or obscure and he doesn't seem comfortable offering any. However, he seems kind, shy, and overly trusting, so she goes out of her way to try to gently expand his comfort zone--and to try to be there for him when others forcefully overwhelm him. She doesn't think that Daniel is comfortable with her, but she wants to get to know him. Sarah: Alair has historically been awful at standing up for herself, but will often stand up for others. Sarah, who has stood idly by for years while her friends tortured others in the school and has victimized Daniel before, is absolutely loathsome in her eyes. However, she respects Sarah's actions in the knight confrontation--not that she feels Sarah saved her, because she saw the grenade coming that Sarah did not, but that Sarah put saving Emi before her own well-being. For that reason, she attempts to tolerate Sarah's questions and presence with more patience than she tolerates most annoying things. As the Yellow Ranger (Season 2) Personality Alair is still suspicious of Miss White--even after she comes out as Dawn Highland after the confrontation with Daniel, Alair doesn't trust her because of her extreme lack of human empathy. She works with her uneasily. Whether it's because of her powers or simply because she's been out of the closet to quite a few people for some time, Alair gives less fucks about concealing herself and goes out to public places and even the pool party at the school as herself. She dyes her hair and begins to take more care in her appearance, also eating more normally. However, she also spends almost no time fostering connections outside of those that benefit her as a Ranger--except with her mother. She is reckless with her life, nearly killing herself to save Daniel. Thoughts on Other Rangers Emi: Though Alair tries to be there for Emi when she returns from her harrowing imprisonment, Emi distances her vehemently until her abrupt departure. Alair is too angry to say goodbye. Holly: Alair is suspicious of Darren and disgusted at Miss White's prior treatment of Holly's predicament, and thus feels protective towards her fellow Ranger, though in ways she has difficulty vocalizing without feeling like she'll offend her. She respects Holly for her consistent presence and competence and (now that everything is out on the table) her honesty. Trenton: Trenton and Alair share a Moment at the pool party, but Alair feels the bubble burst when she is reminded (repeatedly) of Trenton's physical needs during cafeteria conversations. She still likes him and feels an attraction, but she doesn't pursue the situation because she is afraid of getting hurt. She also struggles with his recklessness. Daniel: Daniel is the only Ranger Alair feels sometimes like confiding in--his awkward sensitivity is gentle enough for her to feel comfortable--but she struggles with the fact that he has sometimes passed on what she told him. She has difficulty with how trusting he is, although it also spurs her to be extremely protective of him. Daniel is also Alair's tenuous connection to other humans, through the radio station and "hanging out." Sarah: Alair recognizes that Sarah is trying and has problems, but she has very little patience for her ignorance and difficulty imagining other perspectives, so she simply ignores her some of the time. Category:Rangers